


An Unlikely Acquaintance

by ArtDeco



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9895019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtDeco/pseuds/ArtDeco
Summary: ‘Adil smiled at him, and Toby smiled warily back, as though worried it might be slapped from his face.’Adil makes an unlikely acquaintance. Toby finds an unlikely ally.





	

* * *

 

Adil had been employed at The Halcyon for a month before he first met Toby Hamilton. It was April 1938, and Toby was home for the Easter holidays. According to Mr Feldman, he was in his final year as an undergraduate, reading History at the University of Oxford.

“Bright as a button, that one,” Feldman had said, as they hovered by the green baize door one drizzly afternoon, watching Toby and Billy stagger in and out of the lobby with cases. “Mr Garland says he might get a double first.”

“Where’s his welcome committee?” Adil remembered the fanfare his twin had received on his return from a fortnight’s skiing in the Alps.

“Suspect they’re all busy,” Feldman said, shrugging. He moved forward to greet Toby, and Adil drifted across the lobby into the empty bar.

Half an hour later, Billy staggered across the dancefloor, his white gloves creased and grimy.

“Mr Hamilton would like some coffee,” he said breathlessly, “He’s in the Aldwych Suite.”

“Right you are.” Adil put down the cocktail glass he’d been polishing. He was curious to get a closer look at the youngest Hamilton. He’d rarely heard him mentioned, even in passing, and he wondered whether he’d be cold like his father or haughty like his twin.

“I’ll take it up to him if you like,” Billy offered, though he had collapsed onto a bar stool, his thin face red and sweaty.

“I’ll go. You catch your breath.” Adil grinned at him. “What’s got you in such a state?”

“His cases,” Billy groaned, rotating his left shoulder gingerly, “Hundreds of them. He could give Lady Hamilton a run for her money, ‘cept I doubt his are full of jewels.”

“Then what’s in his?”

“ _I_ don’t know,” Billy said, massaging his neck, “He wouldn’t let me unpack for him. Books, I reckon, from the weight of them.”

There was a flurry of voices in the lobby, and the echo of luggage being set down on the parquet floor. Billy grimaced at him.

“No rest for the wicked,” he said wearily, and strode off.

As it was, a party of six then entered the bar in search of cocktails, and Adil passed the tray of coffee off to a maid. The early evening rush was such that his mind was too occupied to give space to his curiosity, and it wasn’t until the band had struck up after dinner that he saw Toby Hamilton again.

He was shorter than his twin, though they shared the slim face and sharp cheekbones of their father. Both had dark hair, but whilst Freddie’s was slicked back severely with Brylcreem, Toby’s was slightly wavy, and long enough that his fringe threatened to fall forwards into his eyes. He walked a step behind his brother and father, tugging slightly at the neck of his dinner shirt, and when Lord Hamilton made a beeline for Mr Garland, and Freddie spotted a chum on the dancefloor, Toby was left hovering rather awkwardly in the doorway. A couple behind him tried to slip around him, and in his haste to move out of their way, he tripped over his own feet and almost careered headfirst into Emma Garland. She caught him, laughing, and he straightened up quickly, a strained smile on his face as his cheeks flared pink. Adil turned away, realising he hadn’t been paying the slightest bit of attention to the Martini he was preparing. Betsey was crooning _Oh Yes, Take Another Guess_ , and the dancefloor began to fill with shimmering gowns and starched dinner jackets.

“Whiskey, please,” mumbled a voice, and Adil looked up to see Toby clambering onto the bar stool in front of him. The corners of his mouth were turned down, his forehead creased in a frown; Adil wondered whether it would be impertinent to offer him a double.

“Certainly, Mr Hamilton,” he said. Toby started slightly at the use of his name, and looked Adil in the eye for the first time. Adil smiled at him, and Toby smiled warily back, as though worried it might be slapped from his face.

“Ice and water, sir?”

“God, no.” Toby was tugging at the neck of his shirt again; his bowtie had fallen slightly askew. “I say, I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Are you new?”

“New-ish, sir. A month tomorrow, in fact.”

“Lovely,” Toby said. He seemed skittish, his eyes darting from Adil to the band and around the ballroom. They hesitated for a moment on the back of his father’s head, before he turned back as Adil pushed the drink across the bar.

“Thank you,” he said, giving Adil another quick smile. He knocked half of the measure back in one gulp, and Adil raised his eyebrows.

“It can’t be as bad as that, sir,” he said lightly. Toby seemed about to laugh, when he suddenly winced. The tip of his tongue poked out, and he ran it gingerly over his bottom lip. Adil noticed the split on the left hand side.

“That looks nasty,” he said, and Toby flushed, as though he’d been caught doing something inappropriate. “Would you like some ice for it?”

Toby shook his head. “Just the alcohol,” he said. “Stung a bit.”

“I thought Oxford types didn’t go in for fighting.” Adil wondered whether he was becoming over-familiar, but the bar was relatively quiet, and Toby didn’t seem the type to bite his head off for asking questions.

“Caught it playing rugger, I’m afraid,” Toby said, with a rather odd laugh. He sipped at his drink cautiously. “Pre-season training.”

Adil’s attention was diverted by a group of businessmen, and he excused himself from Toby. A pair of ladies followed, then Freddie and his chum, then a few members of the band on their mid-set break. By the time he returned to Toby, he was a little dismayed to find three empty glasses in front of him. He caught the junior barman’s eye, and gave the smallest shake of the head in Toby’s direction; the barman grimaced, and returned the whiskey bottle to its place on the shelf. Toby looked up at Adil through slightly bleary eyes, and gave him a wonky grin. His split lip had begun to swell, and he ran his finger over it experimentally. The pad was smeared with blood when he drew it back.

“You ought to get that seen to, sir,” Adil said, tidying away the glasses. “Might need a stitch. Shall I fetch Miss Garland?”

“It’ll take more than a split lip to drag her away from my brother,” Toby said. His eyes searched hopefully for the whiskey bottle. “Who knew cricket could be so violent?”

Adil blinked. “I thought you said it was rugger, sir.”

Something flickered across Toby’s face, but then his grin widened and he laughed that rather odd laugh again. “So I did,” he said, his tongue flicking masochistically over his cut, “You must accept my apologies, Mr-?”

“Joshi,” Adil supplied. “Adil Joshi.”

“You must accept my apologies, Mr Joshi,” Toby said. “I must be tiddlier than I thought.”

“I do hope not, Toby.”

Toby jumped so violently he almost fell off the barstool. Lord Hamilton had somehow materialised beside him, stealthy as a bloodhound. He appraised his son, his eyes raking over Toby’s floppy hair, his loose bowtie, the lint on the lapel of his dinner jacket. One grey eyebrow rose in distaste. Toby’s face and neck reddened; his chin jutted up in what seemed like defiance, but his eyes flickered everywhere but his father.

“I do hope Mr Hamilton hasn’t been bothering you,” Lord Hamilton said, turning his imperious gaze on Adil, who started at being addressed.

“Not at all, m’lord,” he said carefully. “Might I get you a drink, m’lord?”

“No,” Lord Hamilton snapped. Adil watched with apprehension as he turned back to his son.

“Am I to take it our conversation this afternoon fell on deaf ears, Toby?” he said coolly.

Toby flinched. “No, sir.”

“It’s none of my business how you behave at Oxford, Toby, but whilst you are under this roof you will conduct yourself with courtesy and restraint. Is that clear?”

Toby’s eyes were fixed on the floor. “Yes, sir.”

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

Adil winced in sympathy. Toby’s face was so red he looked as though he might burst into flame. He forced his eyes upwards, his damaged mouth twisting slightly. His father held his gaze for a moment, then turned back to Adil.

“Mr Joshi, would you be kind enough to send Mr Hamilton’s bar bill to his room at your earliest convenience? I wouldn’t want you to think he was taking advantage.”

“Of course, m’lord,” Adil said, though it felt strangely like an act of betrayal, and with a final, pointed look at his son, Lord Hamilton swept out of the bar.

Toby said nothing for a moment, staring at the spot in which his father had stood.

“I wasn’t trying to take advantage, you know,” he said suddenly. Turning to Adil, his eyes were desperate. “ _He_ doesn’t have a bar bill, nor does Freddie, so I thought…” He trailed off. “It’s my own fault,” he said gloomily, “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“It’s quite alright, sir.”

He wasn’t quite sure what to say after that, except that it _wasn’t_ Toby’s fault, and that it hadn’t been kind of Lord Hamilton to speak to him like that in front of staff. But he sensed that Toby had retreated, sobered by his father’s harsh words, and he said nothing but goodnight when Toby slunk off to bed.

He made sure to deliver bar bills to both Freddie’s and Toby’s suites the following morning. When Lord Hamilton queried him, he simply smiled genially, and said, as His Lordship hadn’t specified which Mr Hamilton was to receive a bill, he felt he ought to err on the side of caution. Lord Hamilton had scowled, but Toby’s grin at him across the ballroom that evening had, peculiarly, made it worth it.

***

Adil saw little of Toby for the rest of the Easter holidays. He was busy with his studies, according to Feldman, who said he was writing something called a dissertation and didn’t like to be disturbed. Generally he surfaced from his room only for meals, often not even stopping for lunch, and he would shoot straight back upstairs after dinner rather than linger in the bar. The maids complained they could barely clean the suite with the number of books scattered about, and he rang almost daily for coffee mid-afternoon, with strict instructions for it to be left in the corridor.

“So as not to disrupt the balance of my working environment,” he’d said to Mrs Hobbs earnestly by the reception desk, whilst Adil had dragged his feet across the lobby.

“Try running a hotel, dear,” she muttered darkly, once Toby was out of earshot, “I wouldn’t know a balanced working environment if it danced naked on the bar.”

Three weeks into Toby’s holidays, downstairs became hysterical with the news that Katharine Hepburn was to stay the night.

“She’s here to meet a theatre manager,” Kate said excitedly. “He wants her for a play in the West End.”

“I heard she has a London lover and she’s here to break it off,” argued one of the kitchen staff.

“You know some people say she’s Hitler’s secret cousin three times removed?”

“She was just grand in _Stage Door_ ,” Billy sighed dreamily. “Lit up the screen.”

“Not a patch on that Ginger Rogers though,” Feldman said lustily, “Those _legs_ -”

Adil wrinkled his nose. He had little chance to visit the pictures, but he’d heard this Katharine Hepburn had recently been labelled ‘box-office poison’, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he served her that night without having an inkling who she was.

Ms Hepburn, to everyone’s disappointment, arrived only an hour before dinner, and was scheduled to leave at nine o’clock the following morning. Though the maids loitered by the green baize door, they caught a glimpse only of dark, heavily coiffed hair and a huge fur coat, before Ms Hepburn and her beau (who, according to the scandalised Mrs Hobbs, was sharing her suite) were escorted upstairs. As though to add insult to injury, Ms Hepburn requested room service rather than taking dinner in the dining room; it was taken up by Emma, and so the rest of the downstairs never so much as heard her voice.

Adil had watched out of the corner of his eye as Toby ascended the stairs immediately after dinner. He walked stiffly, keeping a firm grip on the bannister, and Adil wondered whether it would perhaps be too forward to send a Martini up to his room. A little surprised that the idea had struck him at all, he served drink after drink, smiling at Lord Hamilton through gritted teeth as he ordered a bottle of champagne for himself and the young blonde on his arm. He knew Lord Hamilton was married, though he had not met the wife, who was apparently languishing in the country and turning a determinedly blind eye.

Last orders on weeknights was at half past one, and as the stragglers wove their way upstairs, Adil dismissed the junior barman, who lived a half-hour’s walk away. He began to wipe down the bar mechanically, his eyelids drooping.

“Oh!”

He started, and looked up sharply to see Toby standing in the doorway. He had discarded his bowtie and dinner jacket, and his shirt was open at the collar, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His socked feet curled on the tiles.

“I’m sorry- I thought everyone had gone up.”

“Quite alright, sir.” Adil waved him in. “Only me left.”

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Toby said, hovering as though Adil might charge at him if he ventured further.

“You haven’t. I was just finishing up.”

Toby hesitated, but as Adil resumed wiping down the bar, he padded into the room. He moved slowly, his arms hanging loosely at his sides, and he paused in the middle of the dancefloor with his face tilted up to the ceiling. His eyes fluttered closed, and Adil slowed his movements as Toby began to whisper under his breath, his mouth moving so minutely he might simply have been breathing.

“Poetry?” Adil asked, unable to help himself. Toby turned to him, looking bashful.

“If only,” he said ruefully. “I’m writing my dissertation. It’s due in three weeks.”

“What exactly is a dissertation?”

Toby blinked. He seemed bewildered. “You mustn’t let me put you off,” he said, after a pause. “It really isn’t very interesting.”

“It must be interesting, else you wouldn’t be working on it twelve hours a day.”

Toby seemed almost nervous, and Adil got the impression that he wasn’t often asked to speak about himself.

“A dissertation is basically a very long essay,” he said cautiously, as though he were offering Adil the chance to back out. “It’s eight thousand words long, and we each have to write about a topic of our choice.”

“And what’s yours?”

“The Reformation. I’m discussing whether England might have become a Calvinist state if Henry VIII hadn’t divorced Anne of Cleves.”

“The German one? Who looked like a horse?”

“The German one who looked like a horse,” Toby agreed. He laughed and then gasped sharply; his hands fluttered to clutch at his left side, and his chest hitched, as though he were struggling to catch his breath.

Adil moved out from behind the bar. “Are you alright, sir? Do you have a stitch?”

“No.” Toby shook his head, his voice taut. “No, I- I just had an accident.”

“An accident?” Adil took his arm gently. “What sort of accident?”

“Nothing,” Toby said, even as he let Adil lead him towards the bar. “I fell. In the courtyard.”

“Was there no-one around to help you?”

“I didn’t need help,” Toby snapped, but relented immediately. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me.” He winced as Adil helped him up onto a stool. “Please forgive me.”

He remained clutching at his side, and Adil wondered whether moving him had somehow jostled the injury.

“Shall I telephone for a doctor, sir?”

Toby shook his head again. “No need,” he said, though his smile looked more like a grimace. “I shouldn’t have come down. My room was just so stuffy and I couldn’t think-”

“You ought to rest, sir,” Adil said, gently reproving. Now he and Toby had drawn closer, he could see the dark circles beneath his bloodshot eyes; his face was pale with exhaustion. “You can’t possibly get your double first on no sleep.”

“No time.” Toby yawned spectacularly. “I must have it finished before I go back. Then I have two weeks to refine it.”

“How far through are you?”

“I’ve done around six thousand, three hundred words, I think.”

“Then you’re almost there, sir.”

Toby smiled tiredly. “Thank you for your faith, Mr Joshi.”

They lapsed into silence, and though it was comfortable, it rippled with something. Adil realised his hand still lay on Toby’s arm, and his chest flickered, like the spark of a match as it tries to catch. Adil was about to suggest Toby head upstairs to bed when he shifted. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

“I brought this down to read over,” he said, his eyes fixed on a spot slightly to the left of Adil’s face. “It’s a draft introduction. I wonder-” he faltered, and his gaze flicked to Adil, as though for courage, “I wonder whether you might- whether you might read it.”

Adil’s surprise must have shown in his face, for Toby continued hurriedly. “You don’t have to, of course; I know you’re incredibly busy, and it’ll probably bore you to sleep, but as you’re here, I thought- well, I suppose I’m worried it might not be good enough.” He looked down at his ring. “My father and brother are too busy, you see.”

Adil suppressed a scowl. He hadn’t ever seen Freddie busy with a task one might call useful, and he didn’t think it unreasonable to suppose that Lord Hamilton, if he had time to waste on tarts, might also have some to spend on his son. He held out his hand.

“Course I can, sir,” he said easily, “Though I can’t pretend I’ll understand a word of it.”

“It’s only a draft,” Toby said anxiously as he handed it over, “So it may be a little rough.” He nibbled at his lip as Adil scanned the paper. Words Adil had only ever read in newspapers, like ‘subsequently’ and ‘paradoxically’ and ‘conversely’, flew off the page, and though he couldn’t comment on the accuracy of Toby’s suppositions about the advance of sixteenth-century Calvinism, he was struck by the fervour of Toby’s writing, by the passion and the intelligence and the innocent sophistication of his analysis.

“It’s wonderful, sir,” he said, looking up as he reached the end of the page. “If this is just the introduction then the rest must be quite something.”

“You mustn’t just say that to spare my feelings,” Toby said, though he had flushed with pleasure, “You must tell me if you don’t think it’s up to the mark.”

Adil wondered how often Toby received compliments, and how desperate he must be to have come to the barman, whose own education was as far removed from Eton as it was possible to be, for academic approval.

“Well, there is one thing,” he said, in mock-seriousness. “You call her Anne of Cloves. Not Cleves.”

“What?” Toby snatched the paper back, and Adil pointed to the penultimate line.

“There. Anne of Cloves.”

Toby looked at Adil as though he had just saved him from a bullet. “Gosh,” he said breathlessly, “I missed that. How awful- if I’d written an essay about Anne of Cloves!” He crammed the paper back into his pocket. “I’m immensely grateful, Mr Joshi.”

The rippling returned with the silence, and Adil felt a twisting in his chest, a peculiar, coiling heat as his eyes remained locked with Toby’s. He was staring, they both were, but his heart was thumping against his ribs and the heat was spreading outwards from his chest, along his arms, sparking in his fingertips, which, if he just stretched slightly-

The clock in the lobby chimed half-past two. The fingertips, still tingling, diverted sharply from their path to Toby’s knee, and hid Adil’s contrived yawn.

“We ought to call it a night, sir.”

A flush sat high on Toby’s cheeks. He shook his head, as though to clear it.

“I’m sorry for keeping you,” he said. The words sounded mechanic. “Do you have a long walk?”

“Only ten minutes, sir. And I’m not on duty until the afternoon.”

Adil’s hands quivered as he tugged at his jacket. Toby eased himself off the stool, his face creasing a little in pain, and Adil’s brow furrowed.

“Are you quite sure you wouldn’t like a doctor, sir?”

Toby smiled mildly. “Quite sure. But thank you.” He massaged his side gently. “Just a few bruised ribs, I should think. Nothing to worry about. It was my own fault for lingering when it was wet.”

Adil walked with him to the lift, and waited while it clanged down to the lobby. “Why don’t you take the day off tomorrow, sir?” he suggested. “Sleep. Go for a walk. Go to the pictures. If you rest your brain for a day, you might find you work better the day after.”

“You’re very wise, Mr Joshi.” Toby smiled again. “And you’ve been so kind. Goodnight.”

Adil waited for the lift doors to close before he slipped through the green baize door. The twisting heat had cooled, and he supposed he had been temporarily seduced by the lateness of the hour and the stroke which Toby’s interest in his opinion had given to his ego. Ambling along the downstairs corridor, he turned the conversation over in his mind.

Toby had said he’d hurt his ribs in the courtyard; that he’d fallen on wet slabs. But unless Adil had missed a freak shower, he was quite sure it hadn’t rained in four days.

***

Over the following two years, Adil and Toby intermittently crossed paths. Toby achieved his double first, and continued straight on to a postgraduate degree in Medieval History. Even in the summer holidays, he would hibernate in his room with stacks of books, only surfacing for meals and to walk to and from the library. He would depart for short holidays from time to time, to stay with Oxford pals or his mother in the country, but mostly he drifted up and down the grand staircase, twisting the signet ring on his finger and attempting to blend into the wallpaper whenever his father entered a room.

Yet despite his seclusion, Toby never seemed far away from injury. His mother, on a flying visit in the summer of 1939, had thrown a small party to celebrate his appointment as a junior researcher, and he’d arrived in the bar with a black eye.

“I’m afraid I got a little tiddly last night,” he explained congenially, though Adil could only remember serving him one gin and tonic. “Walked straight into a doorframe.”

A few weeks’ later, Adil had noticed a bandage wrapped clumsily around his left wrist.

“Fell off my horse playing polo,” Toby laughed, even as the hand holding his whiskey shook, “Disgraced myself quite thoroughly, I’m afraid.”

Now Toby was living at the hotel, rather than in his college, the frequency of the injuries became more noticeable. Hardly a month seemed to pass without him bearing some form of physical damage, and the more Adil asked, the more Toby withheld. The excuses nosedived from the tentatively believable to the unequivocably ludicrous, but Adil supposed, with his brother training for the RAF and his father meeting secretly with Nazi sympathisers, that no-one else had a spare thought in their head to take an interest.

In mid-November 1939, Toby was sporting another black eye. The lid had swollen shut, and the discoloured flesh seemed almost grotesque beneath his neatly-slicked hair.

“Car door,” Toby said to Adil as they passed in the lobby, before he could even open his mouth. “There’s no helping some people!”

Even Mr Feldman seemed taken aback. “I don’t know what good he thinks he’ll do in the library with only one working eye,” he said darkly, as Adil loitered by reception on the pretext of checking the evening’s wine list. It was the first occasion on which Adil had heard another member of staff acknowledge Toby’s injuries, and he snapped to attention.

“It’s peculiar, isn’t it?” He abandoned the wine list to follow Feldman through the green baize door. “I can’t quite see how he managed _that_ on a car.”

Feldman looked at him sharply. “It’s best to keep out of it, lad,” he said tersely. He paused as Mrs Hobbs brushed past them. “The family’s affairs aren’t our business.”

“But suppose he isn’t just clumsy?” Adil pressed, as they turned in the direction of the kitchens, “Suppose someone’s hurting him?”

“Suppose someone is,” Feldman said cagily. “He’s got a father and a brother and a mother. If he needs help, he can ask for it.”

Adil stopped. “I think that’s rather unkind,” he said, and Feldman turned to look at him, surprised. “If it was Emma, would we turn a blind eye? Or Kate? Or Billy?”

“ _He_ isn’t like Emma or Kate or Billy- or like you, for that matter. He’s one of _them_.”

Adil held his ground stubbornly, and Feldman sighed. He glanced about them, then jerked his head towards the wine store.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” he said quietly, once they had shuffled inside. “Mr Garland likes to keep it hush hush, but the truth is it’s been going on for years. Ever since the boys went to Eton, perhaps even before. But children are forever getting into scrapes, and no-one ever _saw_ anything… Well, nothing that couldn’t be explained away.”

“Then you know who it is? Or at least have an idea?”

Feldman sighed again. “I do and I don’t,” he said evasively, “And I suspect you do too.”

“I don’t understand.”

Feldman glanced at his wristwatch. “I won’t say anything I don’t know for certain,” he said, “That’s a sure as Spitfire way to end up on the kerb. I hoped, once he was off at Oxford, it might stop, but if anything it’s worsened since he moved back in.”

“So what can we do?” Adil demanded, but Feldman glanced at his watch again.

“I’ve been down here too long,” he said, and chivvied Adil out of their nook before he could protest. “Keep this under your hat, lad, else Garland will have our ears for kippers. And for God’s sake, don’t say anything to Toby. He won’t thank you for it.”

***

Adil supposed, after Mr Feldman’s warning, he ought to leave well alone, but Toby was so clearly unhappy; jumpy and broody and, Adil thought, desperately lonely. He’d thrown himself into his research, leaving for the library before breakfast and returning with only minutes to change for dinner. He was drinking more and eating less, and he’d taken up smoking.

As November rolled into December, the Christmas season arrived at The Halcyon. Adil was lucky to catch more than four hours sleep each night, and he groaned when Mr Garland pinned up the rota and he saw he’d been assigned the Christmas Day shift. Unable to visit his family, he was irritable on the day itself, and he was short with Toby at the bar; Toby’s face had dropped, and Adil had felt as guilty as if he’d kicked a puppy. He watched Toby drink himself almost unconscious during his father’s speech, then hide in the corner of the ballroom rather than join his brother on the dancefloor. Adil took a grim satisfaction in their shared misery.

The Yuletide guests departed on January 2nd, and no new guests were admitted until the 4th, and so each year, on January 3rd, the hotel was closed. The family held its own private festive celebration: Lady Hamilton came up from the country, and as many staff as possible were given the day off. Adil volunteered to stay and serve; he’d been able to spend New Year’s Eve with his family, and he needed the money if he wanted to buy a wireless. He hoped, in a more intimate setting, Toby might be able to relax; he hadn’t, as far as he could tell, received an injury since November’s black eye, and Adil hoped the mysterious assailant might have finally decided to let him alone.

The family was scheduled to meet for cocktails at eight o’clock, then sit down for dinner at nine. When the lobby clock chimed half-past eight, and Toby still had not materialised, Adil was sent up to the Aldwych Suite to hurry him along. The hotel felt peculiar in its emptiness, and the sound echoed in the corridor when Adil knocked on Toby’s door.

There was no response, but this was not unusual; if he was reading, Toby liked to reach the end of his sentence before admitting an interruption. After a short pause, Adil knocked again. He knocked a final time, then, wondering if Toby had perhaps fallen asleep, he called through the door.

“Mr Hamilton,” he said, a little awkwardly, “Her Ladyship has requested you come down, sir.”

He knocked again. “Mr Hamilton, sir? Is everything alright?”

Still there was silence on the other side of the door, and Adil, summoning his courage, turned the handle and poked his head around the door.

The suite was dark, though the curtains were open, and Adil groped along the wall for the light switch. Once illuminated, Adil saw that the suite was devoid of inhabitants, the bed neatly made and the bathroom door open. He wondered, for a wild moment, whether Toby had run away, but his clothes were hung neatly in his wardrobe and his books remained scattered across his desk.

“But where _is_ he?” Lady Hamilton demanded upon Adil’s return, as though he was privy to Toby’s daily schedule. “He can’t possibly still be loitering in that ghastly library.”

“Has anyone seen him today?” Freddie asked.

“Not since luncheon.” Lady Hamilton’s eyes narrowed as she looked Adil up and down. “Are you quite sure the room was empty? Did you check the bathroom?”

“Yes, m’lady.”

“Was there a note of some sort? On the desk, or on the bed?”

“No, m’lady, not that I could see.”

The lobby clock chimed the hour. Lord Hamilton put down his cocktail glass.

“We shan’t wait,” he said coldly, “Not if he can’t do us the courtesy of punctuality.”

“You don’t suppose he’s been hurt, or- or harmed in some way?” Freddie ventured, as Lord Hamilton strode towards the dining room.

“Perhaps he’s meeting a girl,” Lady Hamilton suggested, though her tone was rather more wistful than hopeful. Lord Hamilton snorted.

“I don’t care if he’s meeting Princess Elizabeth. We shall not indulge this behaviour.”

The dinner itself was uneventful; Freddie and Lady Hamilton seemed relatively unconcerned about Toby’s whereabouts, and even Lord Hamilton managed to drag himself from his seething to enquire about Freddie’s flight training. Adil’s attention dipped in and out of the conversation, moving from the corner of the dining room only to refresh the wine glasses and serve the next course. His mind strayed to Toby. Suppose Freddie was right? Suppose he had been hurt? Suppose there had been a fire at the library, or he’d been hit by a car crossing the road, or set upon by a gang of thugs?

Adil was serving the coffee when he heard the front door open and close. The family paused, and there came the unmistakeable click of dress shoes on the parquet floor. Lady Hamilton looked as though she were about to call out, but Lord Hamilton threw his napkin down on the table so aggressively that the coffee cups rattled in their saucers.

“Lawrence-” Lady Hamilton began, but Lord Hamilton pushed back his chair and marched across the dining room. He flung the door open, and it banged loudly against the wall as Lady Hamilton and Freddie scrambled to their feet. The entire display was so indecorous, so far removed from Lord Hamilton’s usual oily composure, that Adil felt rather alarmed.

“How _dare_ you!” Lord Hamilton roared from the doorway. His indignation was so immense it might have been comical had it not been so terrifying. He moved from the doorway with an energy which was almost violent, and Lady Hamilton, Freddie and Adil spilled into the lobby behind him.

Toby was standing at the foot of the stairs. His head swivelled from the front door, to his father, to the top of the stairs, and Adil couldn’t blame him for wanting to make a run for it. He retreated up several steps as Lord Hamilton advanced, his hands flying out in front of him as though to hold him off.

“Father-” he said desperately, but Lord Hamilton drew back his arm and struck him hard across the face with the back of his hand. Lady Hamilton screamed. The force of the blow was such that Toby was knocked not only off his feet, but clear of the few steps he had ascended. He landed on his side on the lobby floor, his chest caving as the impact winded him.

There was an appalled silence. Toby’s laboured breaths rang out harshly, and he looked so wretchedly small, crumpled on the marble floor, that Adil felt unsteady on his feet.

Lord Hamilton shook out his hand. “Get up,” he ordered.

Toby dropped his forehead against the marble, as though to summon his strength. His eyes flickered closed for a moment, and then, with visible effort, he levered himself up to rest his weight on one hand. A small gash had been torn into his cheek by his father’s ring. As his breathing evened out, he hauled himself unsteadily to his feet. He fixed his gaze on the lobby clock. His face was white.

“Where have you been?” Lord Hamilton’s voice was strained with forced calm.

“I’m twenty-three,” Toby said expressionlessly. “I don’t need your permission to go out.”

Adil thought this reckless in the extreme given what his father had proved himself capable of. Lord Hamilton’s eyes narrowed into slits.

“I will not ask again.”

“Then I will not tell you again.” Toby turned his damaged face to look his father in the eye; his own blazed with a fire Adil had never seen there before.

“Toby, you will tell me where you were; you will apologise to me, to your mother, and to your brother; then you will go to bed and you will not leave your room for the next seven days.” Lord Hamilton had his back to Adil, but his voice was like ice. “Unless you wish to become reacquainted with my belt.”

Adil’s chest clenched. What little colour Toby had drained from his face until his skin appeared grey; he seemed on the verge of faltering, when Lady Hamilton spoke up.

“Lawrence, you mustn’t-” she said, sounding alarmed as she stepped forward, but the reminder of another presence seemed to reignite Toby’s defiance.

“Don’t act as though you didn’t know,” he snarled, turning to his mother and brother, and his face twisted so viciously that Adil almost took a step back. “Don’t stand there- both of you-” he was almost incoherent with rage- “Both of you, acting as though you had no idea. As though this is a shock.”

“Do not speak to your mother like that!” Lord Hamilton thundered. Toby rounded on him, colourless and bleeding and trembling, yet somehow terrifying as his face twisted again.

“This stops now,” he said to his father. His voice cracked. He looked away, and for a moment the trembling seemed to shake the very ground he stood on, but when he spoke again his voice was colder than Adil had ever heard it.

“God knows I’ve tried to be more like Freddie, more like _you_ \- but it’s as though you can sense the falseness of it, and somehow it makes you hate me even more. If you knew what you wanted from me then even now, after everything, I might keep trying to make you proud. But I don’t think you do.” He gave that odd laugh again, echoing and tinged with hysteria, and the sound was acrid in Adil’s ears. “I don’t think you have the faintest idea. So perhaps it’s time we both accept defeat, because we cannot go on as we are.”

Toby stared at his father, his mouth twisting in the silence, and Adil felt as though something had died. Toby’s complicity – his shame and his fear, his silent endurance – had held this family together. Tonight, their pretence, the unspoken agreement that the nastiness might go away if it remained unacknowledged, had been shattered. Adil felt he had been witness to perhaps the bravest moment of Toby’s life so far. Abruptly, he felt he ought to leave, should perhaps even hand in his notice and allow this family to bury this part of their lives without him; but something kept him there, watching Toby hold his ground, even as wetness mingled with the blood on his face.

Lord Hamilton’s eyes were blank. They held his son’s gaze for another long moment, then he turned and, without a word, ascended the staircase. Adil wondered whether he felt ashamed. Toby watched him go, unmoving until he was out of sight, then his composure collapsed. His knees quivered and Lady Hamilton started towards him, but he shook his head violently.

“I managed twenty-three years of this without you. I can manage one more night.”

“Toby,” Freddie said helplessly.

Toby swiped at his face. He didn’t look at anyone, but when he raised his head there was a defiant, almost ugly clench to his jaw.

“I’ll be heading to bed,” he said stiffly.

Once he had followed his father upstairs, Lady Hamilton turned to Adil. Her face was ashen, but she made a passable attempt at her usual imperious tones.

“I hope I don’t need to remind you that if you wish to continue working at this hotel, indeed at any hotel in London, you will not breathe a word of tonight’s events to anyone. Not to the police, and not to anyone downstairs.” She raised an eyebrow. “Is that clear?”

Adil was barely listening. “Yes, Lady Hamilton.”

“I suggest you take a few days off. I shall inform Mr Garland that we can expect you back at work on Friday.” She looked at him, and he nodded curtly. Satisfied, she sniffed, and moved towards the stairs. “I bid you both goodnight.”

To his surprise, Freddie fell in step beside him when he moved towards the front door. The frigid January air hit Adil like a blow to the gut, and he wondered whether he had the strength for the ten minute walk home.

“I’m sorry about all that,” Freddie said weakly. Adil was silent, looking out at the empty road. He could sense Freddie’s eyes on him, perhaps anxious for reassurance that Adil didn’t judge him, didn’t think he was warped and rotten like his father.

“It isn’t me you should be apologising to,” Adil said, without looking at him, and strode off into the night.

***

Lord Hamilton’s death came as a shock to both upstairs and down, not least to Toby, who, according to the whisperings of the maids, had been the last person to see him alive. Toby had entered the dining room in a peculiar temper the following morning, dressed entirely in black, a lock of wayward hair threatening to tumble over his face. Adil had expected to see red-rimmed eyes and soaked handkerchiefs at the Hamilton table, but though Lady Hamilton and Freddie looked subdued, Toby’s jaw was set in a harsh line. His eyes flashed whenever he was addressed, and he stomped out of the dining room the moment he’d finished his tea. Adil wanted to catch him on the stairs, express his sympathies, assure Toby of his father’s excellence as Mr Garland had last night; but Toby knew he _knew_ , and Adil didn’t wish to compel him to a charade of grief.

It was Adil’s second shock in twenty-four hours to find Toby sat in the wine cellar that evening. There was a full ashtray and a packet of expensive cigarettes beside him, and a half-empty bottle of whiskey clutched in his hand. His fringe had fallen forwards into his eyes, his dinner jacket abandoned on the floor.

“I’ll pay for it,” Toby said vaguely, gesturing to the bottle. He took a deep swig. “I’d say sorry for being in your way, but to tell you the truth I’m not.” He looked surprised at his own bluntness. “I’m not actually sorry at all.”

“That’s alright,” Adil said carefully. He wondered whether he ought to fetch Freddie, or perhaps Mr Feldman. “I’m on my break. Thought I’d get away from the noise for a moment.”

“I can leave,” Toby said, though he made no move to stand. He put the bottle down with a clunk on the concrete floor, and lit a new cigarette. “If I’d known how much better tobacco makes you feel, I’d have taken up smoking at Eton.” He took a long drag, eyelids fluttering in pleasure. He thrust the packet at Adil. “Want one?”

“Better not. Not whilst I’m on duty. Mr Garland would smell it on me.”

“These are my father’s,” Toby said indifferently. He looked up at the cobwebbed ceiling. “They were on his dresser. I went back in after they took the body away.”

“Is there anyone you’d like me to fetch, sir?” Adil asked gently. Toby’s fingers were groping clumsily for the whiskey bottle, and Adil didn’t fancy cleaning up vomit from the cellar floor.

Toby didn’t answer for a moment. He offered Adil the bottle, but he shook his head again. Toby shrugged and took another swig.

“I thought,” he said slowly, his brow furrowed, as though he were working through a maths problem, “I thought that even after- after everything, I’d still be sad when he died. Not bawling-my-eyes-out, hurling-myself-into-the-grave sad – but _something_.”

Adil sat cross-legged on the floor, leaving a respectable distance between them. The cigarette smoke made his eyes sting.

“You know, the last thing he said to me was that I was a disgrace. Come to think of it, that was the last thing he ever said to anyone. His last words in this life were calling me a disgrace.” His fingers tightened and loosened rhythmically around the bottle. “Thing is, they say blood’s thicker than water, and although I hardly know my mother, barely see her for more than a week at a time each year, I’d still-” he broke off, mouth twisting in frustration, “- I’d still be _sad_. I don’t know how much I’d miss her, but I know I’d be sad if I went upstairs and found she’d gone too. But this-” he gesticulated with the whiskey bottle, the contents sloshing against the rim, “- this doesn’t feel anything like sadness.”

The cigarette was crumbling to ash in his fingers. He turned to Adil. His eyes blazed.

“I feel relief, Adil.”

The fire died as quickly as it had flared, and Toby sagged back against the crates.

“I’m not happy, but I’m- relieved. I’m not sad, I’m not ravaged by grief; I just feel as though a weight has been lifted from my chest. And _that’s_ what’s making me sad.”

Toby took a final drag of the cigarette, then dropped it into the ashtray. Adil waited, but Toby seemed to have reached the end of his confession, for his head fell back against the crates. His limbs were loose with exhaustion. Tentatively, Adil slipped the whiskey bottle from his slack grip, and placed it behind him, out of reach.

“That doesn’t make you a bad person, Toby,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t make you a bad son. He was a cruel man, if you’ll forgive me, and you didn’t deserve what he did to you.”

Toby was still for a moment, and then, to Adil’s horror, his face crumpled. He made a keening sound, like a wounded animal, and it tore into Adil like a scalpel. Toby slumped forwards to bury his face in his knees. Slowly, hardly believing his own daring, Adil reached out to rest a hand on his back.

They sat silently for a while, as the shaking in Toby’s shoulders subsided. Adil traced tiny patterns on the back of Toby’s shirt, dusty from where he’d leant against the crates. Then Toby uncurled, meeting Adil’s eyes with a small, watery smile, and he allowed Adil to lead him to the back stairs so he could creep, unnoticed by his mother, up to bed.

***

Though he suspected Toby had been too drunk to remember, Adil thought back on that night as the moment the seed took root. It had been planted months before, perhaps even on that very first April evening, when Toby had licked his split lip and smiled at him as though the expression felt foreign on his face. But the night in the cellar had drawn them closer, and as the days and the weeks and the bombs pulled them further away from the memories of Lord Hamilton, Adil found himself brushing Toby’s fingertips as he passed him a drink. Disappointment would jolt in his chest when Toby retired upstairs. His palms would break into a sweat when Toby asked his opinion on a book. The coffee incident had been unfortunate, a rash impulsion, and Adil had felt his face heat with embarrassment when Toby caught his eye in the lobby the following evening.

And yet, somehow, they had made it. Adil, half-addled with desire, had taken the most almighty risk in the wine store, and he wished he knew which god to thank because, by some miracle, that risk had come off. Toby was his, tentative, troubled Toby, with his sharp cheekbones and sharp mind and sharp tongue, and Adil felt, for the first time, that at last it might be permissible to dream, to envision a life for the two of them, for men like them, once the ghastly war was over, where they might live and work and love without class and colour and the law to segregate them. And as much as it frightened Toby, for Adil the illicitness was part of the thrill; every snatched glance and brushed fingertip racing through him like a shock, and some nights – when Toby’s hair fell a certain way, or he said something clever, or he laughed in a way which was no longer odd but somehow awed, as though he didn’t quite dare to believe in his own happiness – it was all Adil could do not to reach across the bar and kiss him breathless.

On a spring evening in 1940, Lady Hamilton was dancing with Mr D’Aberville, Freddie was at base, and Emma was flirting with the borderline-alcoholic Yank. Toby looked particularly dashing in his dinner suit, sipping delicately at a Martini and eying Adil so outrageously that Adil wondered how the junior barman hadn’t yet sounded the alarm.

“Have you had a pleasant day, Mr Joshi?” he asked brightly. He picked up the cocktail stick bearing his olive, regarding it with interest.

“Perfectly pleasant, thank you, Mr Hamilton. And yourself?”

Toby smiled widely, showing two rows of pointed teeth. “A little lonely, I’m afraid.” His tongue darted out, and the pink tip caught the drip of alcohol quivering on the olive’s skin. “And yet the work is so stimulating that it makes one wish one had someone to share it with.”

His tongue darted out again. Adil’s eyes narrowed. “I was under the impression that your work is top secret. Sir.”

“Of course.” Toby looked down at the olive as though he hadn’t eaten in a week. “So it would need to be someone special. Discrete. Someone with their wits about them. Someone who knows just what they’re doing, and just how I might like to do it.”

“That’s quite a list of requirements, Mr Hamilton,” Adil said through gritted teeth, as Toby ran his tongue around the olive. “And what might this other person get out of it?”

Toby paused. His eyes sparkled. “Aside from the honour of being my confidante?”

“Aside from that, sir,” Adil said drily.

“Well,” Toby said slowly, and pushed his glass across the bar, as though to request another drink, “I’d of course return the favour. I’d talk about whatever they wanted. In exactly the way they might like to talk about it.” He blinked innocuously. “Assuming they were agreeable, of course.”

Adil’s mouth went dry. “ _Whatever_ they wanted?” he repeated, struggling to keep his voice even.

“In exactly the way they wanted.”

Toby sucked the olive into his mouth. His cheeks hollowed around the cocktail stick, and he looked so debauched, so innocently filthy, that Adil broke into a sweat.

“Wouldn’t you be- ah- afraid?” he asked, and his voice sounded slightly strangled. “Of doing- I mean, talking about something you hadn’t- er- covered before?”

Toby chewed the olive thoughtfully, and Adil followed the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

“Surely that’s all part of the fun?” he replied impishly, then whispered, before Adil could respond, “Take your break in ten minutes. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

***

The speed with which Adil rushed upstairs bordered on indecent. Toby could be a little reserved when they were alone, unwilling to let go of his inhibitions, but his seduction in the bar had been quite brazen by his standards, and Adil hoped it heralded a new era.

Toby was hovering at the end of his bed, shoeless, twisting his signet ring on his finger. Adil closed the door behind him, barely remembering to lock it before he was upon him, clutching at Toby’s waist and pushing him backwards until he was pressed against the wall. Toby squeaked, opening his mouth, and tangled his hands in Adil’s hair.

They moved together feverishly. They pushed jackets from each other’s shoulders, and Adil fumbled with Toby’s bow tie. He unbuttoned Toby’s collar and pulled it away from his neck, latching onto the column of his throat as Toby’s head fell back against the wall.

“Careful,” Toby gasped, at the first scrape of Adil’s teeth, “You’ll m-mark me.”

“Good,” Adil growled. He felt a twitch against his leg, and grinned against Toby’s skin. He licked a stripe over his handiwork and pulled back. Toby already looked wrecked, sweaty and breathless, hair messy and eyes dark. The mark Adil had left on his neck might just peek above his collar when he dressed for work tomorrow morning.

Toby leant forwards, seeking contact, but Adil placed a hand in the centre of his chest to keep him against the wall. Toby’s skin was blazing through the shirt, and Adil thought that they really ought to discard their clothes before they evaporated from heatstroke.

“You know,” Adil said, keeping his hand on Toby’s chest even as he drew closer, “I was quite shocked by your conduct downstairs.” He slipped a leg in between Toby’s, and pressed upwards gently. “I thought Oxford boys knew how to behave.”

“I- I, erm-” Toby stammered. Adil began to drop feather-light kisses against his jawline.

“You were quite shameless. It was disgraceful, really, how shameless you actually were.” Adil travelled upwards to his ear. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t deal with it immediately.” He nipped the lobe, as though in promise. “But I’m going to deal with it now.”

Toby had stilled against him. His breaths were short and irregular by Adil’s ear.

“I didn’t mean to be inappropriate,” he said softly. Adil’s grip on his hip tightened.

“Oh, I think you did. I think that’s exactly what you meant. And if Oxford couldn’t teach you how to behave, then I suppose the task falls to me.”

Adil harboured an idea that Toby had a secret desire to be taken over his desk. Bookish, studious Toby, with his inky hands, fingers calloused from his typewriter, gasping and exclaiming in the place where only two hours before he’d been working on terribly important government documents. Adil would take him in his beloved library if it wasn’t guaranteed to get them incarcerated. He pressed a final, bruising kiss to Toby’s lips, then moved his hands to Toby’s belt.

A flush sat high on Toby’s cheeks. When Adil stepped back, his eyes flickered away from his face and back again.

“Why don’t you take those off for me?” Adil suggested, and Toby’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Tentatively, he pushed down his trousers and underwear and stepped out of them; his hands tugged at the hem of his shirt, as though to hide himself. Adil stepped in to kiss him again, and he slipped his hands around him to feel the firm muscles of Toby’s back. Toby’s hands fluttered, before resting lightly on Adil’s waist.

“Come on. Before I’m missed downstairs.”

Adil took him by the arm and led him to the desk, which the maids had cleared of the usual debris of pencil shavings and crumbs and scrap paper. Toby faltered as they reached the desk, but his breathing had picked up, and Adil leant in close to his ear.

“It might hurt to start with, but it won’t take long to get used to. And I promise it will be worth it.” When Toby still seemed hesitant, Adil added, “But we can always save it for another day.”

“No,” Toby said quickly, “No, let’s…” he trailed off, and when Adil let go of his arm, he took a steadying breath, and lowered himself gingerly over the surface of the desk.

It was all rather filthy, Adil thought wonderingly. He rested a hand in the small of Toby’s back, and Toby’s torso twitched, muscles jumping in his shoulders. He deflated slightly, as though he’d been holding his breath, and Adil supposed he felt rather exposed. He decided to even the score. He removed his hand from Toby’s back and reached for his belt. The buckle jangled as he began to pull it from the loops of his trousers.

“I’m sorry.”

Adil looked up, startled. Toby remained bent over the desk, but his hands were gripping the far edge so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

“What are you sorry for?” Adil asked blankly. He began to re-buckle his trousers, but as the buckle clinked again, Toby’s entire body convulsed, as though he were fighting with himself not to stand up.

“I’m sorry for my behaviour downstairs.”

Adil blinked. He wondered whether this was part of the game.

“Toby, I-” Adil began, and moved towards him, but the moment his hand returned to Toby’s back, Toby shot up from the surface of the desk and twisted around. His face was burning and his mouth was twisting, twisting with the same something Adil had seen the night they had met, when Lord Hamilton had rebuked him the ballroom.

“Can’t we talk about this?” Toby begged, and Adil’s brain fought desperately to untangle the wires, “You know I wouldn’t- I never meant to upset you or to be inappropriate or-”

“Toby-”

“I just thought it might be fun- I wasn’t trying to tease you, only in a nice way anyway-”

“ _Toby-_ ”

“And I swear it will never happen again-”

“Toby!”

Toby’s mouth snapped shut. Adil reached out to cup his face and he flinched, as though he feared Adil might strike him.

With a clarity which made his head reel, Adil suddenly understood.

“Toby,” he said carefully, “What did you think I was going to do?”

Toby’s eyes were wide and over-bright. His face creased, as though he were searching desperately for the correct answer.

“I’m not angry,” Adil continued quickly, “I just want to understand what you’re thinking. Make sure there hasn’t been any confusion.” He made sure to keep his distance, so Toby knew he could bolt if he liked.

Toby was twisting his ring so fiercely he was in danger of breaking skin. “I thought-” he said, and cringed like the mouse waiting for the pounce, “Weren’t you going to punish me?”

Blood rushed to Adil’s head. The notion was so appalling, so against everything Adil was and stood for, that he felt his temper flare briefly. He fought to keep his voice neutral.

“Why would you think that, Toby?”

“Because of what you said! Talking about my conduct and behaviour, saying I was inappropriate- that I was disgraceful. You said you were going to deal with me. You said it would hurt.” Toby was almost indignant. “And what else is one supposed to think when they’re half-naked over a desk?”

“But when I promised it would be worth it-?”

Toby looked away. “Well, you wouldn’t have been angry anymore, would you? Afterwards, I mean. If I took it without a fight.” He shrugged uneasily. “I thought it was a trade-off: my cooperation for your forgiveness.”

Adil felt sick. He wondered whether Toby had simply got the wrong end of stick, albeit spectacularly so, when something Lord Hamilton had said pushed to the front of his mind.

“Toby, did your father ever punish you like that?”

Toby’s jaw clenched. He nodded once.

“When?”

“Until I went to Oxford. When Freddie and I were home from school.” He looked away again. “Usually he just hit me- with his hands, I mean. His belt was just for serious offences.”

Adil didn’t want to know what might have classed as a serious offence for Lord Hamilton. He supposed it was a blessing the man was already dead; otherwise Adil might have marched down the corridor to the Royal Suite and caved his head in.

He realised Toby was regarding him nervously, as though he wasn’t quite sure whether or not he was in any trouble. Adil surged towards him and embraced him roughly.

“I’m sorry,” he said, though it came out rather muffled against Toby’s neck, “I should’ve known- I should’ve guessed. I’d have never-”

“It’s alright,” Toby murmured, “It isn’t your fault.” Adil could feel him relaxing, uncoiling muscle by muscle. “It’s my fault for-”

“No!” Adil tore himself out of Toby’s arms and grabbed him by the shoulders. “You must stop this. Stop believing his poison. _None_ of what he did was your fault. You didn’t deserve any of it.”

“You don’t even know what I did.”

“I don’t care if you set the hotel on fire or crashed his car. I don’t care if you swore at the King. The way he treated you is indefensible. Violence is never the answer.”

Toby smiled at him weakly. “We’re in the middle of a war.”

“Yes, well, don’t get me started on that.”

They were still for a moment, and Toby seemed to notice his state of undress.

“Would you- look away for a moment?” he asked awkwardly, and Adil turned to draw the curtains as Toby pulled on his dressing gown. Late summer had given way to autumn, and the gas lamps burned a soft orange through the evening smog.

“That night- in the cellar,” Toby said suddenly. “You said I didn’t deserve it. What he did.”

“That’s right,” Adil said. So he did remember.

“Well, you were the first person to say that to me. In fact, the only person.” There was a rawness to Toby’s voice that made the hairs on the back of Adil’s neck stand on end. “You are the only person who has ever told me it wasn’t my fault.”

Adil turned around. “Doesn’t your mother speak with you about it? Or Freddie?”

“I think they’re hoping to forget it ever happened.” Toby smiled humourlessly. “I was so angry with them, for such a long time. I was even angry with you for a while.”

“If only I’d realised sooner-”

“No, I didn’t mean that.” Toby sank down on the edge of the bed. “I was angry because you saw. You saw my shame. And yet I think, after I’d stopped being angry… well, it made me love you even more. Because you’d noticed it. Noticed me.”

Adil sat down beside him and took Toby’s hands into his lap. “The shame is his, not yours. And I will tell you it wasn’t your fault every day if that’s what it takes for you to believe it.” He gripped Toby’s hands tightly. “We’ll both be upset with each other sometimes, perhaps even angry or frustrated, but I couldn’t bear it if you were frightened of me. I will never hit you, not with my belt or with my hands. I promise.”

“You mustn’t promise that.” Toby’s grip on Adil’s hands was almost painful. “Not if you don’t truly mean it. You can’t be sure.”

“I am sure. I’ve never hit a soul in my life and I have no intention of starting with you.”

Toby shook his head. “It seems too good to be true,” he said eventually, his smile rueful.

Adil twisted his hands to lace their fingers together. “That night in January,” he said quietly, “The way you spoke to him- it was the bravest I’ve ever seen you.” He squeezed their palms together. “Please, be brave again.”

Toby looked down at their hands, brown intertwined with white. He leant in, his eyes half-lidded, and kissed Adil softly on the mouth. When he pulled back, he rested their foreheads together; his thumb stroked gently over Adil’s index finger. The corners of his mouth had untwisted and were tugging upwards.

They kissed for long minutes, touches by turns caressing and clutching, until Adil broke away to glance at Toby’s bedside clock.

“I ought to get back,” he said regretfully. “They’ll miss me and I never was a good liar.”

They kissed again, and again, then one final time. Adil was pushed towards the bathroom to fix his hair, and Toby shook out the creases in his uniform jacket.

Just before opening the bedroom door, Toby turned back.

“If you weren’t going to punish me,” he said slowly, “What were you going to do?”

Adil blushed. “I was going to- touch you,” he said evasively.

“Touch me?”

“Inside.” Adil sighed at Toby’s blank look. “There’s something called a-” he coughed- “Well, it’s a little bundle of nerve endings, I suppose, and it can feel pleasant if someone touches it. I’ve done it, and, er, had it done to me, and in fact it’s very pleasant indeed.”

He watched the cogs turn in Toby’s head.

“And it’s inside me, you say?” Toby asked dubiously.

Adil kissed him again; he couldn’t help it. “Tell you what,” he said, putting his hand atop Toby’s on the doorknob, “If you haven’t worked it out yourself by tomorrow night, I’ll give you a practical demonstration.”

The ghost of a grin tugged at Toby’s lips. “I’ll hold you to that.”

* * *

 


End file.
